A solid understanding of guidelines and COVID-19-related complexities will limit claim denials and audits. Deciphering documentation to determine what qualifies as critical care services can be challenging for medical coders and auditors. With limited critical care codes available for assignment, reporting may appear relatively straightforward at first glance. However, there are many considerations that coders […]
New COVID-19 vaccine status codes, changes and corrections to the 2022 CPT code set, Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) payment changes, and prior authorization code list changes — that’s what’s on the agenda this month. Read all about it! 3 New Codes Improve COVID-19 Vaccination Status An April 1, 2022, update to the 2022 ICD-10-CM […]
Affordable Care Act enrollment for 2022 and public payer enrollment midway through 2021 saw some record-breaking surges. In 2020 and 2021, public payer and Affordable Care Act marketplaces experienced major disruptions and changes that continue to have ripple effects. The year that the pandemic struck, Medicaid and CHIP enrollment escalated for the first time in […]
On November 2, 2021, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) issued its Calendar Year (CY) 2022 Physician Fee Schedule (“PFS”) Final Rule. In this post, we sample some key highlights from the Final Rule. For more detail, take a look at our previous post, in which we highlight the PFS’s changes to the […]
To excel in value-based care, providers must lean on strategies for managing population health and skillful risk stratification. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations observed the ramifications of fee-for-service, leading to communication and revenue challenges for both providers and patients. While value-based care is not a novel idea, the pandemic greatly accelerated the adoption of this […]
Here are the six best reimbursement stories from 2021 HealthLeaders’ coverage and beyond. COVID-19 continued to impact healthcare reimbursement as the pandemic entered its second year. Yet, what’s different is that longer-term strategies and new business opportunities are emerging beyond crisis response. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) aided these plans by […]
COVID-19 hospitalization costs varied by state, with the highest in-network cost averaging $128,650. According to a new FAIR Health study, COVID-19 hospitalization cost varies by state, with complex hospitalizations for COVID-19 in-network average cost maxing out at $128,650. “Behind the numbers of our COVID-19 Cost Tracker are the individuals who have contracted COVID-19. As a […]
The package includes three ICD-10-CM and seven procedure codes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) have both stated that in April 2022, we will have three new ICD-10-CM codes and seven new procedure codes for COVID-19 therapeutics and vaccines. You may recall that in […]
The cost to appeal is worth the claim reimbursement and modification of payer behavior. As we approach 2022, one of our new year’s resolutions should be to do what’s necessary to decrease denials. We know that payers and external auditors took a break during the pandemic, but now it’s open season for audits and denials. […]
The news coincided with the sudden worldwide emergence of the new omicron COVID-19 variant. An influx of cash couldn’t have come at a better time for the nation’s rural healthcare system. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) last week announced that the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has begun distributing $7.5 […]